What "They" Don't Tell You About Post-Partum Hormones

A young friend of mine has been battling an undiagnosed disease for around a year now. They can't tell her if it is M.S. or Parkinson's or something else, so she has been through the ringer with a wide range of quickly-progressing and often surprising symptoms. She has held onto her sense of humour through this, and today I read her blog from start to finish. It really spoke to me that she could find laughter in what is a really shitty situation, so I thought to myself (after several hours of trying to avoid a panic attack), "dammit, I am going to write a funny post instead of talking about how anxious and depressed I am!" Here it is.

What "They" Don't Tell You About Post-Partum Hormones

1) BOOBS. When your milk comes in and you are not nursing, your boobs are going to expand to roughly the size of planets and develop gravitational pulls...and they are going HURT. No, "hurt" is too mild a word. It will feel like breast explosion is imminent. They will turn warm and hard and knotty, and you will try anything to relieve the pain. Like putting frozen cabbage leaves on them. And, if you're like me, your mind won't be thinking logically (see #13), so you'll go to bed with the leaves still tucked into your huge sports bra, thinking that the magical curative properties will continue to work through the night to give you back your sanity (and normal-sized breasts). Then you'll wake up the next morning to the most sour, putrid cabbage stench imaginable (a little like hot garbage juice). I can still recall that smell in vivid detail. Apparently, you're not supposed to leave them after they get warm. But if you do, just know that triple-washing your sheets and clothing probably won't even come close to getting the gag-inducing reek out.

BOOBS AGAIN. On the topic of boobs, having your milk come in (what a tame expression) means that they will be leaking. Everywhere. Like enough that your husband has to wait outside the shower with breast pads waiting so that you don't soak the bath mat. You will find a way to turn this into a game.

These might actually be Salma's regular boobs, but even so, these are small
compared to what milk boobs usually look like! (Image credit here)

2) YOUR VAGINA. Do yourself a favour and just don't look. And don't let your partner look. Though if you're like me, you'll have a very strange pulling pain in your stitches one day and you won't be able to see well enough to check if there is something wrong, so you'll make your poor husband take a peek. His face will turn green, then ashen, then red, and he might gag a little, but he will still love you afterward. A friend's husband described it as "Sarlacc-gina," but I still think that's too tame.

SARLACC-GINAAAA! Geek reference for the win. (Image credit here)

3) YOUR HAIR. Your hair is going to fall out either in clumps or in a never-ending stream. It'll start innocently around two months after birth, then kick into overdrive around two months after that. The heaps of hair will be so large that, if you hot-glued some googly-eyes onto them, you could probably sell them as pets. Also, because your hair is all falling out and thousands of new hairs are growing in, your head might be unbearably itchy and flaky. If you are a dummy like me, you will give in to the itch and scratch so hard that you draw blood. YEAH! You'll find stray hairs stuck to your socks, in your food, and maybe even in your butt crack! What joy. Maybe you'll even discover that you are a long-lost cousin of Edward Mordake and find a face hiding in your (remaining) hair! Okay, that part didn't happen to me. But the Ewok hairballs and bloody, flaky scalp part did. In fact, it's still happening. To be fair, someone did actually warn me about this, but I really thought they were exaggerating. Nope!

4) PHEW! You're probably going to start sweating more and you'll smell bad. Sorry, babe. Turns out pregnancy hormones were actually awesome and now your body is in withdrawal. I have gone through so much more deodorant since birth!

5) THE RABBIT HOLE. Deep depression. Raging anxiety. Uncontrollable crying. Insomnia. These can happen to you whether or not you get to take your baby home. They can also strike anywhere from immediately to several months later, so you might think you're home free, then WHAM! you're eating boxes of ice cream bars and sobbing at episodes of Call the Midwife early into the A.M.

6) PIZZA FACE. You'll be able to play "Connect the Dots" with the pimples on your greasy face. And your back. And boobs. And arms.

All of the blotches. (Image credit here)

7) IT WOBBLES TO AND FRO. Even the slimmest of us don't usually get lucky enough to avoid what my friend affectionately calls the "meat curtain." No, it's not that kind of meat curtain, you perv, it's the soft blob of loose flesh that dangles under your belly button in a lovely fold that feels like bread dough. Personally, I like "skin skirt" better. A week ago, I squashed my spongy muffin top back into my favourite pre-prego pants and called it a win. This bod will never be the same, but that's okay. I think I can cut it some slack since it grew a human being then pushed her out all on its own! In fact, I think it deserves another box of ice cream bars.

8) IT RUBS THE LOTION ON ITS SKIN. Well, turns out it doesn't really matter if you did this or not while you were pregnant; stretch marks are mostly hereditary and they affect almost every mother. I kind of lucked out with the belly marks and escaped with a small patch on the bottom left and one scar above my belly button that looks like an eyebrow (like it is permanently saying, "are you kidding me?") I did, however, get a whole lot of stretch marks on my boobs, so reserve your hatred for energetic pregnant women and moms with sleep-through-the-night newborns. (Just kidding, don't hate anyone please!)

The lotion ain't gonna work, honey. (Image credit here)

9) THE BOOM. Sex is going to suck for awhile. I'm sorry. It just will. You'll finally scrape together enough libido to take a stab at it (or to let it take a stab at you...yeah, I really did just make that joke) and then you'll be surprised to find that your attempts are much like trying to drive a Buick through the eye of a needle. The good news is that it'll get better. I PROMISE.

10) AUNT FLO. If you are not on the birth control pill, your period is going to come back with a vengeance. Maybe not right away, but it will. My first one was this gentle three day spotting and I thought, "that's it?!" And then I had a nine-day period about three weeks later that I thought might be the end of me. I could have soaked up a whole flock of sheep and a cotton factory just in the first three days and I had every period symptom in the book - it was worse than puberty! Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. It wasn't all that bad. (Hrrrmm...shuffle shuffle).

11) NUTTER BUTTER. On the topic of cycles, you might go bat-shit crazy when you get PMS for the first few cycles. I am talking psychotic. That happened to me almost a month ago. Now I am "eagerly" awaiting Aunt Flo's return. Oh goody! I wonder what she will bring with her this month. Paranoia? Surrre, why not? We'll just heap it on top of the sharp increase in anxiety, cramping, mood swings, insomnia, panic attacks, and all the rest. It'll be a party up in here!

Eyeballs and teeth. (Image credit here)

12) OW, OW, OWWW! You're going to hurt. I'm not even talking about the stinging of your nethers when you go pee for the first week or the throbbing of your bosoms. I'm talking about all of that sweet, sweet Relaxin hormone leaving your bloodstream, making your loosey-goosey joints suddenly feel quite geriatric. Oh, and you're going to probably still have low back pain and stiffness for a few months, bee tee dubs. If you're really unlucky, your pelvic pain will also stick around. Lucky you!

13) THE FOG. You'll discover that your "pregnancy brain" was permanent and you're going to be a little dumb forever. This is something I find endlessly irritating, as I like to believe my mind was sharp before pregnancy sapped it of its memory and thinking juices. Alas, I am now so absent-minded that Husband has long since stopped chiding me (I just get an exasperated "seriously?!" from time to time).

Yeah, I know I ended with the number 13. That's because you're going to be feeling pretty unlucky when you're a sweaty, spotty, mammoth-breasted baldy with a dangling pooch, an angry vagina, and a side of crazy and ouch.

While I genuinely believe that it was all worth it and that birth is a beautiful, magical thing, it isn't easy on the ol' bod. I'm trying to tell you what "they" won't; enjoy your pregnancy hormones while they last, sweetheart. They're a cakewalk compared to what comes next.

Down the Rabbit Hole and the Long Way Back to the Top

After Haven died, my mom warned me about slipping into the pit. She said, "it is a lot easier to keep from falling in than it is to climb back out again." My mom is a wise woman. And I am in the pit.

Since my last post, anxiety and depression completely took over my life and I broke one evening. It was a long time coming, and I am actually shocked now that it took so long for me to break. I slipped into a panic attack, where I sobbed and hyperventilated and felt like my heart would burst from my chest. Three months of heart palpitations, insomnia, muddy thoughts, and feelings of panic and depression all fell on me at once, with the weight of grief giving them the extra force they needed to crush me.  My husband received a text from me that caused him to worry, and when he called, I could barely form words. He rushed home and spent the day with me, cleaning the house, making supper, and holding me close. I don't think he realized until that day how badly I was doing.

Sometimes I look at myself almost like I am standing outside my body, and I think about how startlingly unhappy I am. Most days it is all I have been able to do to convince myself that I don't want to die, and that life is worth living. I don't intend to hurt myself, but I have had little will to live. It is like the joy has been sucked out of my life...kind of like one of those airtight clothes storage bags. I feel shriveled and pointless and other a lot of the time. But even though it has been a truly black time, I can still see from my low vantage point that this is not the bottom. I am afraid of the real bottom.

I returned to work this week. It has been a mixed experience. People's reactions are not always what I would expect, but I will say that everyone has been respectful. I feel entirely like a self conscious outsider, but I think that will ease in time as I learn to be among the living again. A glimmer of hope seeped in this week. For the first time, I have felt kind of useful and even sharp. I even laughed for real a few times as I sat in familiar surroundings and engaged in the banter. When I get home, though, the worries crowded my mind again.

Experiencing this prolonged period of anxiety has really opened my eyes to how it has been stealing from me for years. It has negatively affected and even destroyed some of my relationships. It contributes to my low self esteem and self worth. It steals joy by leeching worry into my thoughts until they spin and push me off course. It steals my sleep too, and it has since I was a child.

My doctor prescribed me antidepressants and sleep pills to help even me out. I am hopeful that they will do just that. Honestly, I regret not taking them during my last major depression. Insomnia really does take things from bad to worse. Of course, this medication means that we have to stop trying to conceive for awhile. I was really upset by that at first, but I am at peace with it now. Almost grateful, really, for a reason to not try. I don't think I was ready. So if, when this fall rolls around, I am doing better, I will ask the doctor to wean me off of these drugs, and we will start over again. My doctor said, "I think you owe yourself the pleasure of enjoying your next pregnancy." I think she is right. It's going to be so hard when the time comes, but I know I can't make it harder on myself by rushing into it.

Today, I am feeling almost positive. I decided today that this devastation and this crash are not going to kill me. I am too pissed off about my experience to let it beat me. I realized today that I have been letting this situation turn me into a victim, but no more. I am going to get my life back. If that means a new job, a new haircut, or new friends, I am going to do whatever it takes to get there. If it means risks, I'll take them. At the same time, I care so much less about the piddly things now. Perspective is an incredible gift, and I am not going to waste it.

I ran into this quote today, and I'll close with it. It made me think about how I have always put off doing the things I want to do, and how I have let life happen to me instead of taking charge. If losing Haven did nothing else, it made me realize how short life is and how nothing is guaranteed. So why wait?

"It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're 'ready.' I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as 'ready.' There is only now." - Hugh Laurie

Postpartum Depression

The happy face is cracking. I was in a delirious state for much of April, following a month of intense anxiety. I almost felt at peace with what happened and felt what I thought was happiness more than once. I could see a way forward. Even at the time, I was suspicious of these feelings, and now I see that I was doing what I do: processing things intellectually and not dealing with my real feelings. When possible, I was blocking the flash-backs and grief and focusing everything on trying to conceive. My therapist pointed out today that this was probably just a deeper form of the shock and denial I'd experienced in the early weeks. I remember wondering early on how you can tell the difference between grief and post-partum depression. Well, now I know you can.

Everything is REAL and close now and I can't seem to shake it off. It's not just grief or sadness, it's like a heavy blanket that clouds my mind and squeezes my heart. I'm exhausted and anxious, my thoughts are scattered, and doing anything more than what I have to do seems impossible. I've thought several times that it would be better if I just wasn't here anymore (though I haven't thought about harming myself with any real intention). I've tried to explain how I'm feeling, but I feel shut down by many friends and family, who often change the subject or try to console me or cheer me up. Though I know I shouldn't, this has caused me to isolate myself. I can't seem to care about anything other than Danny. Even our TTC journey isn't really holding my interest anymore. I found this post-partum depression check-list (click here) and so many of the items apply to me.

I feel like there are two of me; one is the outward me who can sometimes smile and carry on conversations, then there is the inward me, whose only thoughts are of Haven and the life I should be living. Unfortunately, inward me has become outward me in the last few weeks. I'm quiet, I cry, and I don't know how to smile for real anymore. I barely made it through our vacation intact, though I somehow managed to keep from crying in front of our friends. I don't know why I feel I need to appear strong when I'm anything but.

The whole month has really been a trial, and now I am suddenly stuck in the mire. It's like it snuck up on me, even though I can see all of the signs now. There were several big triggers, all right in a row (not counting many smaller triggers):

1) The week leading up to Mother's Day, which is when we were picking out a headstone.
2) Mother's Day.
3) Ordering the headstone.
4) Getting my period after our first cycle. Felt like betrayal.
5) Haven's 3 month mark.
6) My sister-in-law and brother-in-law's son was born. He should have been grandchild #2.
7) Vacation. Last year, we left for this same destination the day after I found out I was pregnant. The home we stayed in was full of ghosts.
8) Newborn photos all.over.facebook. ("This is what life's all about. Early morning rocks with my baby boy.")
9) My sister and brother-in-law decided that they would dedicate their baby on Father's Day and we're invited. I just...can't. I know there is no way they realize just how hard that would be for us, or why Father's Day is one of the worst days they could possibly have chosen, but I still feel stunned.
10) Some comments from people that showed me just how alone we are in this.
11) Hormones. Pregnancy hormones are a cake-walk compared to post-partum hormones. I basically feel awful all of the time. My body is a lumpy, chubby mess, and I hate it so much right now.
12) I am supposed to return to work in about two weeks and I do not feel ready. I am barely getting my house to a livable state, never mind working full-time! I don't know what to do. A friend commented that "maybe it'll be like you never left!" Riiiiight.

So here I am, a depressed and physically pained mother with no baby. I feel like it is all pointless, but I keep trudging on. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I still believe there will be life after this, but it's a struggle to put one foot in front of the other. How do you become a part of society again when you feel like a total alien? How do you grin and bear it? How do you start to care about life again when your whole future was derailed? Do I even want to keep going? What guarantee is there that things will ever be better?

Right foot forward, left foot forward...and repeat.

Mother's Day

I have been dreading this day since the day Haven came into the world, silent. I had anticipated this day almost as much as the day I would give birth, because I would be able to celebrate all of the joy she had brought me in those amazing nine months. I bought a special "I love my mommy!" onesie that I would have dressed her in, and I would have brought her to church to be ooh'd and ahh'd over. I would be able to stand with the other moms, and the kids in the church would have gone around, bringing flowers to all of the moms.

Not to be.

I decided right away that I would not be visiting church today, because I couldn't bear the thought of standing...or not standing. I couldn't decide if getting a flower or not getting a flower would be worse. I knew I would weep buckets, no matter what, and crying in front of people is something that makes me uncomfortable. At first, my husband didn't understand, but he supported my decision to stay home (he'll be coming home from work early to cook me supper and snuggle in front of some cheesy movie of my choice). He also posted an incredibly sweet message to me on facebook. I couldn't ask for a better man to be my partner on this unexpected path.

A good friend sent me this article (click here) yesterday, and it put into words some of the feelings I've been feeling, as well as some of the thoughts I've had about other moms and women in my life. I know so many women in these various situations, so I chose to represent them in my facebook status today:

Sometimes things happen in our lives that make us see things we never saw before. So...

Today I am thinking of my friends whose mothers are sick, and those whose mothers are no longer here. I'm thinking of those whose relationship with their mother or child is not a happy one. I'm thinking of the adoptive and foster moms, and of the moms who made the loving choice to give up their child for adoption. I'm thinking of the many moms I have met who are like me, having lost their child (some of whom are bravely walking the pregnancy road again). I'm thinking of the women who are battling infertility and longing to start a family. I'm thinking of the new moms, and the moms to be. And I'm thinking of my mom, who always worked hard to give us the best life possible.

Mother's Day means a lot of different things to different people. Today is bittersweet, because I ache to hold my beautiful daughter. She brought us a surplus of joy in the short time she was here, and we will always have that. I long for the day when I will hold her again, and I look forward to someday building a family with my wonderful, kind husband.

I know that, if you are reading this, you have probably lost a child. Please know that I am thinking of you today. Please know that you will always be a mom, even if your child is not here with you. Be kind to yourself today, and every day.

Crocuses always make me think of hope, pushing up from the cold, dead ground.
This one gave me a moment of faith in the idea that someday
we will have "take home" babies of our own.

Invisible Parents, the Sequel

There is a parental child benefit that all parents in Newfoundland receive upon the birth of their child. It also applies to parents whose child was stillborn. To be honest, I wasn't sure at first that I wanted it. I felt a little sleazy collecting money when my daughter had died and I didn't have any child-related costs. But I realized quickly that funerals and headstones and all of those things cost money, and they are not covered in any way when your child is stillborn (my insurance booklet very "tactfully" says that my coverage for a dependent's life insurance is only for children "from live birth"). So every expense has been out of pocket. (It turned out that, thanks to the generosity of our friends, family, and coworkers, we were able to cover all expenses without going into debt.)

Filling out the application was emotional for me. You have to tick a box saying that your child was stillborn, and the form asks for the child's name, but it is "not required if you are applying as a result of a stillbirth." I felt like the form was screaming, "YOUR BABY IS DEAD AND SHE DOESN'T MATTER AS MUCH AS OTHER BABIES!" For the rest of our lives, we will have to fight for the legitimacy of our parenthood to our daughter. The fact is that many won't view her as a person and will not think our grief and acknowledgement of her as our daughter is justified. So...I filled her name out anyway. Small victories.

We completed the application and mailed it in with all relevant information and additional forms, only to receive a letter in the mail saying that our application could not be processed because we needed to include a stillbirth registration letter. What? No one told us that we needed one or how to get it, and the application form did not mention it. Stillborn babies don't get birth or death certificates. All I had was a letter from the funeral home confirming that they held a service for Haven. So I had to call that office back to find out what they needed and how to get it, then I had to call Vital Statistics in order to request it.

When I asked why I hadn't been told anything about it, the lady said, "well, I think because it's a hard thing to talk about with parents." I said, "well, it's a whole lot easier than putting parents through this process!" Having to rehash our story with strangers over the phone is one of the most stressful and painful things that I have had to do, and it's something I have had to do more often than you might think. Honestly, I don't give two craps how uncomfortable our situation is for someone else to deal with. They aren't the ones who lost their only child, so they can, quite frankly, suck it up.

This pissed me off, but I restrained myself. After all, it wasn't that lady's fault that the system is broken.

At least there is a happy ending to this story. Or there will be. A local blogger who lost her daughter in a similar way to us (Being Everlee's Mom) contacted the government about this issue and they are now working on a way to streamline the process to spare parents from having to jump through hoops in order to have their children recognized. I know that a lot of families will benefit from such a change. I guess it's just one change at a time, one courageous parent's voice at a time, that will make stillbirth and parents of stillborn babies visible.

Invisible Parents

I am still surprised every time something happens to remind me of just how invisible we are as parents of a stillborn baby. I found out recently that a Public Health Nurse is supposed to visit all new moms at least two or three times, not only to make sure the baby is thriving and feeding, etc., but to make sure the mom is coping alright with all of the post-birth hormones, and specifically to make sure she is not slipping into postpartum depression. But for me, and for so many other moms like me, there was no phone call. No visit.

I thought at first that I must have missed the call or there was some mistake, but when I mentioned it to my therapist, she confirmed that it is not standard practice to check up on bereaved moms. She thought maybe it was because the hospital recommends therapy to the parents, or they might assume that a parent wanting support will contact someone for support. The problem is, when you are the parent of a stillborn baby, it is agonizing to make calls for any reason that requires you to talk about your loss. Believe me, after four calls to EI, I never wanted to use the phone again.

I think it is a poor excuse to say that no one really knows how to handle this kind of loss. Doesn't the medical community owe it to bereaved mothers to give them the same support that everyone else gets? Particularly because mothers of stillborn babies are at a much higher risk for postpartum depression, PTSD, anxiety, etc.

Dr. Ruta Nonacs, discussing miscarriage in her book A Deeper Shade of Blue, says "Experiencing a stillbirth or neonatal death probably puts you at an even higher risk for depression; one study indicated that a mother's risk for depression after stillbirth is about seven times higher than a woman who has a live birth." And another study (click here) confirms that link.

So why are we ignored?

My husband and I have a large network of friends and family who have supported us through this tragedy, but so many other couples don't have that. Even I, with all of the support and understanding that I have been gifted with, feel let down.

I hope that parents like us continue to speak out about their experiences and let the medical community know that we should not be ignored. We are still moms and dads, and we still need support. That is why I plan to contact Eastern Health about our experience. I will update here about any responses I receive.

The Real World Approaches

In Canada, you would normally receive a full, paid year off from work (up to 55% of your normal earnings) if your baby is born alive and well. You still receive the pregnancy/maternity leave portion of your Employment Insurance when you deliver a stillborn child due to the physical recovery and time for grieving. That means 15 paid weeks, and two unpaid weeks. Your employer must give you your job back, or an equivalent job with equivalent compensation. Well, I am about a month away from the end of my pregnancy leave, and I am starting to think about reintegration into The Real World. I have been in a safe bubble of sorts; I've been able to choose the people I want to be around, I have been able to focus on physical recovery and grieving, and I have been able to start each day at my own pace. That will change soon, and I am afraid.

I am afraid of strangers' reactions, since I have such a public job. The more I read forum posts and pieces of people's stories, the more I realize that there are a LOT of people out there who don't understand stillbirth and don't ascribe personhood to stillborn babies. Therefore, they don't think a parent is justified in mourning as though their baby breathed on the outside, or in talking about them the same way as they would any other child they bore. It's ridiculous, frankly. There are babies born much earlier than the point where Haven died, and if they were to spend even a few hours breathing on the outside, even with assistance, a lot of people would think of those babies more as people than they would my daughter, because she never breathed on the outside. I am afraid of meeting these people because I am afraid I'll either lose my mind and yell and them, or that I will be dumbstruck, and they will take my silence as agreement or some sort of proof that they are right.

I am afraid that I won't be able to keep up with things anymore. My job requires me to be "on" all the time, and to remember things. To keep things running smoothly. An administration job is not the kind where you can just shut off your mind. I was always sharp, remembered the little things, did things without being asked or reminded. And now, here I am. I still have "mommy brain" from all the hormones (I've heard this might never go away), my grief is horribly distracting, my focus on trying to conceive (TTC) is distracting, my thoughts about how my husband is doing are distracting...there really isn't a lot of room left for sharp thinking. I hope that I am able to flip a switch and just turn the focus onto my job once I'm back, but I'm nervous.

I am afraid that, if I can't conceive before I get back to work, the exhaustion of full-time work will make it more difficult. I'm afraid that if I can't time conception right, I'll end up having to work next year during the most busy and stressful time at work (April and May) and put my baby at risk. I'm already afraid that if I DO conceive this cycle or next, that even those few months at work will be dangerous for my baby due to my stress and anxiety. Basically, I'm afraid of stress.

I am afraid that going back to work will make all of this seem more real somehow. Like it never happened. I should have been returning in February of 2015 after an exhausting and joyful year of nursing my daughter and watching her grow. Now I am returning early, empty-handed and exposed.

I am afraid that people will think that going back to work means I'm okay.

Sigh. I'm just afraid.